Great Britain capped a brilliant week as they sealed women's recurve team bronze with a dramatic victory over China from the final arrow of the tiebreaker at the World Archery Championships in 's-Hertogenbosch.
The British team of Naomi Folkard, Bryony Pitman and Sarah Bettles made a confident start, hitting three tens with their opening three arrows, as they won set one by 56 points to 48 and set two 54-42.
China fought back by taking the third set 54-53 before winning the fourth set 58-51 to force a tiebreaker which Britain edged courtesy of scores of eight, nine and a ten to better China’s trio of nines and take the match 5-4.
“This just finishes off the week. We came here hoping to get a medal and that’s what we’ve done. It’s the cherry on top,” said Bettles.
The medal comes after GB qualified a full archery team for the Olympics for only the second time as the trio, alongside the men’s recurve team, guaranteed their place at Tokyo 2020 by making it through to the quarter-finals in the Netherlands.
Patrick Huston, Tom Hall and Alexander Wise toppled Japan in straight sets in the second round, while Folkard, Bettles and Pitman bested Italy to confirm their place for next year.
Hall said: “I’ve never shot a match like that in my life. The noise was unreal and everything about the atmosphere was supercharged.
“In the next year, we’re going to do what we did this past year only better. We’re going to work to improve everything else.
“We’ve been trying to do the impossible in a really short amount of time and we’ve succeeded so far but there’s more still to come.” Sportsbeat 2019